Paranormal Insomnia

Went to see Paranormal Activity some time ago and I wrote something during the night after I watched the movie when I could not sleep. When it was written I had it in mind that I would post it on the review section of the theater where I saw the movie. I attempted to, but it turned out they have a character limit of 2000. Guess it doesn't take many characters to say things like, "this movies sucks! if it scaird u UR stuped"

It has crossed my mind many times to just not bother sharing it at all, but I wrote it with the intent to have it appear somewhere... so whatever...

It's more like an irrelevant short story than a movie review, and I give things away about the movie near the end. I'm just over-tired at the moment, and feeling rather ridiculous for losing a night's sleep over a movie!! But I've made myself feel a little better by visiting several theater sites where this movie is now playing. I have been reading people's 10 second thoughts of their Paranormal movie going experience... about half say it scared them quite badly, and the other half think it was a completely useless waste of time and money, good marketing but that's it, don't bother watching, Blair Witch clone, can't believe I got sucked into the hype, anyone that is scared watching it is stupid, or likely scared of their own shadow, chickens!... etc, etc. It has made me think about it all in general terms... about how it has nothing to do with the acting, the story, or anything else within the movie... how it's something inside of the watcher that makes it seem scary. I've been pondering and writing about it all night.

Through pondering it like this, while waiting for the sun to rise, I've concluded that, for me anyway, my reaction to this movie goes way back to when I was quite young, certainly less than 10 years old. My parents dragged me to a back road corn roast drunk-fest party thing, and the hosts of the gathering had a story to tell after the bonfire had burned itself out, and the dampness of the night had moved the few remaining guests indoors.

They sat around the kitchen table smoking cigarettes, sipping enough booze to keep the hangovers at bay, with the lights dimmed, and music playing softly. Most of the children were exhausted and sleeping on any available piece of furniture. I, though equally exhausted, had remained awake and hovering around mother and the other adults, got to hear about their experience of using an Ouija board. About how they made contact with a deceased woman on it. Said that the dog was in the house and it had started barking at a wall and then was jumping at something all the way across the living room over to where they were sitting... and then, at the same time it abruptly stopped barking, the planchette began to move around the board as though an unseen fingertip was dragging it. They said the spirit had spelled out her name for them, among other things, and that they went to the graveyard down the road the next day and found an old weather worn grave marker with the same name on it.

Then, as though that wasn't weird and disturbing enough for my fragile child mind, I recall seeing a documentary just days after on television about a kid they said had become possessed by a demon from using an Ouija board by himself. I recall images of this kid in his pj's floating up the walls and around the ceiling of his brightly lit bedroom, hair messy and face all twisted in a weird evil grimace. That doc, and the story at the party were likely completely fabricated... but at that age I was totally convinced, and utterly terrified by it!! I had to sleep with the light on, and couldn't go to sleep without the clock radio playing for MONTHS. I think that experience has stuck with me over the years, and it surfaces from time to time, mostly just momentary flashes that pass as quickly as they arise, but it seems to come all the way to the surface and lingers there for awhile when I experience something like this movie.

What's really weird about it to me now is that all through the movie I was thinking about how ridiculous the entire experience was. At the same time that I was near shaking with fear while it was playing I was also thinking about how it is just light passing through images on film onto a big white screen, about how the actors were not even reacting like people really would in a situation like that. How the acting was bad, and the movie was actually repetitive and boring nonsense... ((( spoiler begin ))) like things moving on their own, noises with no visible source, moving shadows, something bursting into flames, people sleeping in fast forward and then arguing all day and then going to sleep again. But still, despite all those internal negative valid arguments against the movie, there was something about that girl getting out of bed moving strangely, and acting all weird and trance like, and then later on being pulled from bed and down the hall by her ankle, by something invisible, screaming. ((( spoiler end ))) It just triggered a feeling that is totally, irrationally horrifying, and it is like those images and that feeling are on continuous loop in my mind!!

But I suppose that's the point of going to a horror movie... to be horrified! I should be pleased that I got my money's worth, and that I got an opportunity to dig up and examine some weird psychological trauma from my childhood that adults and television inadvertently inflicted upon me. But anyway... I've rambled on. Hope I've made some kind of point.... or something

I have heard countless times that we are all the masters of our own destiny, but still I find myself at times weakened and wearied by this unsupportive and discouraging world around me. Sometimes to the point where I just want to drop the rod and reel and let this thing go, this thing that has ended up on my hook that seems to be the path that will lead me to the purpose of my life. Just let it go instead of this continuous fight for what I feel is right for me. Head back to that old familiar paradise where the ease and comfort of the rulers nicotine and alcohol sit waiting on the shore for my return. Right now I feel like I'm half way, or on the fence, even though, honestly, I have no fucking idea where I am.

Like from here I can work and move forward, and do the things I know I don't have to do, but I SHOULD do, or I would LIKE TO do. Do the things that would take me beyond feeling this GOOD, to feeling BETTER or GREAT. Forward to that state that I know is there because I've now had a taste of it. OR I can give up and fall back and obscure my reality in a cloud of nicotine smoke and drown it in a lake of alcohol until the end of my days. It's like if I just stay where I am now, and I don't keep on patiently reeling it in, then I just want to cut it loose, just want it to go away all the way. The strange thing is that I don't even know what really is along the harder more right feeling way... it's a subtle calling, but I don't know exactly what to. Unknown, but it feels good and right. The other way, the easy way, the way that feels to me like giving up and falling backward is very well known to me, full of physical pleasures and comforts, not much effort, and more than likely, a slow and painful suicide.

Some could say that I might as well let go and go that easy way because I could set out on the harder, more fulfilling (to me) path, and get run over by a truck or shot in the face before fifty, even possibly before I knew what the hell it was I was seeking by going that way. Or I could work at this life thing, be the best I can be, do what gives me a sense that I'm doing something RIGHT, and live a long time and still not know what it was all for. Kind of makes me think of a question: what would I rather look back on if I could be at the end of my life looking back pondering all that I had experienced? I think it might be better to look back at a life of putting effort into feeling good and doing right than to look back on a life obscured by intoxication and self inflicted medical problems... even though either way doesn't really matter, I think that would be better to look back at.

Stupid ...

Something stupid happened after my last post. That's a pretty harsh word indeed... but I just can't think of another one for what I experienced with the bankruptcy trustee THING that I said I was setting in motion, being pushed into, or whatever. Clicked on the almighty Google and searched for a trustee in this area. Visited a couple of sites, and read a lot about bankruptcy in general... pretty boring crap that I read before. Decided long ago mine would be pretty easy... they've likely seen much, much worse cases than mine. So I find one that seemed to me to stand out more than the others. I click on the contact us link, click on the office in this town, click on the map where it is in town, write down the number because it is within walking distance... then I call, I think it was, the following afternoon.

I say I'm calling because I want to (ha HA! want to!! LOL) file for bankruptcy. A female voice asks me where I live. I say, here in the city. She says, I'm sorry, we don't have an office here in the city... but we do have one in this other city (which is an hour drive away). There is only someone there on Thursdays. Would you like to make an appointment? I say, after trying to process what she had just said, no thank you, I think I'll look around here... and that was that, whatever that was... oh yeah, stupid, that's what it was. Pictured her sitting on the sidewalk with a phone in her lap.